The Final Defense of The Dying
by Silver Tongued Wonder
Summary: Peeta Mellark's thoughts on pain, loss, and life. Oh, and frosting, too.


**WARNING: MINOR MOCKINGJAY SPOILERS UP AHEAD.**

**Unlike most of my other stories, this is about Peeta Mellark. And unlike other stories about him, this isn't centered around his love for Katniss (although there's some bit of it here and there. I mean, can you blame him? He's Peeta.)**

**When I wrote this, I was focusing more on showing everyone the real essence of Peeta as a person.  
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I take a measured breath. With a steady hand, I move the frosting bag left and right, up and down. Rays of sunlight seep through the thin lace curtain, illuminating the kitchen. Beads of sweat trickle down from my temples to my chin. I wipe some away with my sleeve.

Cake decorating is a difficult job sometimes, but I can't complain about it. It keeps me as sane as I can get. It occupies me so I don't have to think a lot about what I've lost—what we've all lost. I guess, in a way, it's my recuperating therapy. Only I'm not sure I can totally recuperate after what happened half a year ago, so I suppose it's just therapy. Unending therapy.

There's nothing bad about unending therapy. What I just can't get over is the fact that I would _need_ it. Because needing it means I need to be relieved of pain or disabilities. Which inevitably means I possess them.

I remember that time. That time so long ago when Katniss tied a tourniquet around my thigh that eventually saved my life, but also crippled me. After I was issued a prosthetic leg, I was immediately up for therapy sessions. For two hours every day, I met with Dr. Wavell.

It was a Tuesday session—my first _real _session. No more stretching, no more flexing. It was time to actually walk. A part of me was excited for it, but when the time came to start taking steps and putting weight on my prosthetic leg, I rammed into trouble.

I couldn't do it. It was just so hard, so difficult, and I couldn't do it.

"Now Peeta," Dr. Wavell said. "You can't learn to walk with this plastic leg unless you forget how it was like to walk with your real one."

And he was right. I couldn't walk unless I forgot how to walk. It didn't make so much sense right then and there, but once I put the haphazard theory into action, I understood. I found that it was easier to get used to walking with my plastic leg when I didn't think about how different it was compared to my real leg.

From that week of therapy, I gained a new life motto.

"A leg is a leg," I sigh as I frost out the petals of a primrose on my cake.

I don't know why I started frosting cakes when I was younger. I could have easily just kneaded the bread for baking. I mean, that's what my brothers did. That's what my mother did. So why did I choose to frost the cakes? Maybe it was because I got to spend a lot more time with my father that way. Maybe it was because I wanted to have some form of beauty in my life. There are a lot of answers to that question.

What I really want to know is why I keep on frosting cakes, despite all the bitter memories it brings.

It reminds me of my family—that one family I never did spend a lot of time with, that one family I took advantage of for the most part, that one family I lost to fire. It reminds me of Primrose Everdeen. Though admittedly I never did spend so much time with her, a relationship had formed between us through some grounds we shared. We both cared for Katniss. We both wanted the best for her. We both, in the most subtle way, belonged to the same team.

All these memories—once sweet but now bitter—do nothing but hurt me. And as I try to think of a reason why I keep choosing to reminisce them by frosting cakes, I come up empty. There's not a single plausible reason. Except maybe…

My mind goes back, way back, to my first Hunger Games. To that memory I managed to salvage, despite being heavily tainted by tracker jacker venom. To that lake, where I laid wounded and hurt and half dead. To that time when Katniss found me. She just realized I had camouflaged myself for protection, and she was impressed.

"I guess all those hours decorating cakes paid off," she said.

I smiled. "Yes, frosting. The final defense of the dying."

That must be why I keep frosting cakes. Because it is, in my own words, the final defense of the dying. Because I am in a position where I can no longer move offensively—only defensively. Because no matter how physically alive I may be, I am indeed dying. It's all true. There's no use denying it. The war has stripped us of everything we have ever come to know and love. We're all dying inside, even just a little bit. But, like I said, a leg is a leg. Whatever comes and goes comes and goes. Life is life. What you need to do is forget about what it was like before, and focus on what it is now.

I remember that one crucial part of the conversation I had with Katniss in the river. I said frosting was the final defense of the dying. And then a look of total authority flashed across her face. It was only there for a second, but in that second, I saw Katniss for who she truly was.

A survivor, a fighter, and maybe the most passionate lover anyone could encounter. One that would not let anything harm anyone she loved.

"You're not going to die," Katniss told me that day.

I sighed. "Says who?"

"Says me," she said. "We're on the same team now, you know."

And maybe that's why, despite all the bitter memories, I keep frosting those cakes. Maybe that's what holds me together—knowing that she won't let me die. Knowing that she will hold on to me, despite all my defects and kinks. And knowing, most of all, that—whatever happens, whatever has happened—we're on the same team now.


End file.
